I am absolutely fascinated by the possibilitites of charcoal as a drawing medium. In this ultra technological times, rubbing a piece of burnt wood against a white piece of paper must feel like the ultimate transgression. Such humble material, but add a bit of human endeavour and passion then, only then, will you get something like this:

These portraits have been drawn by wmwrose, and luckily he shows examples of his work in his flickr photostream. He's going to be on the cover of American Artist Drawing Magazine this summer, and no wonder!Such mastery and capacity for subtlety leave me speechless.

These scanned images are shown in Rare Book Room, an amazing site where you can read ancient books that have been entirely digitally photographed to a high resolution. They come from some of the greatest libraries in the world and they are a joy to watch, even if it would take a bit of effort to read them all! Unfortunately the images shown above don't do any justice to the high quality images shown in their site. You can search by author or by library and they have books from the Library of Congress, The British Library, The Bodleian Library, The American Antiquarian Society... a peek into a world that normally remains hidden to the general public.

Saturday, 24 May 2008

Inspired by her friend Adrienne Monnier, who had been one of the first women to found her own bookshop in France, "Amis des Livres", Sylvia Beach set up her own English language bookshop in Paris and she named it "Shakespeare and Company". They were lending bookshops, where they organized readings and supported the the work of young writers.

Sylvia Beach was the first publisher of James Joyce's Ulysses

Many years later, Mr. George Whitman went on to open his own English language bookshop, and also named it Shakespeare and Company, with the intention of preserving the spirit of the original store .

Saturday, 17 May 2008

This portrait belongs to the collection of the faboulous Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon.
This mood...this mood I know of. Imagine the remote control in her left hand and you'll understand why my posts are so brief....

Sunday, 11 May 2008

Last February this painting was sold at a Sotheby's auction in London for £5.7 million (8,7 € million, $10 million). Peter Doig speaks about his views on this peculiar incident in this article from The Guardian newspaper. His comments on this matter start by the very curious declaration 'It made me feel sick, really".